The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I saw this on the Backcountry site, thought it would be important here also. This is a link to send a letter to your congressman opposing FAA user fees. http://www.nbaa.org/userfees

Very important stuff ... just drafted some letters a few minutes ago.


Things I have read on other forums and web sites highly suggest getting a paper copy to the rep - it takes a little more effort to "ignore" it (compared with deleting an email). According to some, a fax may be better these days due to terrorism threats with mail. Especially if you're eating a powdered donut while sealing the envelope .

Some have also suggested a phone call.

I plan to do both - fax and call. Keep your eyes on AOPA, EAA, and NBAA web sites for more specific instructions related to timing of votes and debates that your particular rep may be involved in.

Thomas

I'm just about done! Go ahead charge user fees! I won't ever file a flight plan again I will move to an uncontrolled field I will just stop talking to the FAA Hell if they want me to stop flying they can go to hell

forgive my ignorance,
but what is so bad about these fees?
what would be the top 3 fees?
iowa

Does it really matter? If you look at all privatization, it seems good at the beginning but falls downhill in years to come. The costs to provide esculate and the company in charge wants to keep charging more for their services. If you read histories of other countries and services, I don't want their problems.

John

Dave,

We had a similar conversation last November; see http://cessna170.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3656

On the second page of that thread, I talked about user fees that exist in Europe, which make it quite a different place to fly -- not the kind of freedom we have here.

The problem really is that the first few fees the government imposes are the camel's nose inside the tent. It's a large shift in funding philosophy, and once you make that shift, the user fees keep increasing and piling on.

In England you used to have to pay quite a bit of money for a preflight weather briefing (until the internet made it possible for pilots to get them free from Sweden). In Ireland there are ATC facilities who will bill you for any radio contact with them at all. If we ever get these kinds of fees in the US, it will drastically change the way we all fly -- and not in a good way. Let's not even start down that path.

Best Regards,

John

Iowa,

If you still want to see what is wrong with user fees, I suggest you map out a four hundred mile round trip, with a couple of en route stops, in Europe and see what the difference in costs would be in comparison to here at home.

The proposed user fees are just a symptom of a much larger problem - accountability. In my former life I had to deal with large local, state and federal bureaucracies. My experience has taught me that 50% of government spending is wasteful. A good example is the local General Services Agency for the county you live in. The GSA was developed with the intention that the agency would "service" those agencies in the county providing mandated functions, i.e., Police, Fire, Hospital, etc. The Police, Fire and Hospital agencies must present and obtain approval from the Board of Supervisors for their budgets - accountability. The GSA, whose Director is appointed by the County Administrator, who controls the county budget, simply divides his increased costs, i.e, staff, vehicles, buildings, etc. into the number of agencies being served and calls that his budget. As a result, the GSA quickly becomes the largest and most costly organization within the county structure. The local Police Chief can have the battery in a patrol car replaced at the local garage for $100. The GSA charges the Police Chief $400 to replace the same battery. If the FAA was managing the budget funded by existing sources in a responsible way there should be no need for user fees, or at least a good record of justification for an increase in funding. I believe it is time for a serious audit. You can't put a gasoline fire out by pouring more gasoline on it.

In the case of the FAA/ATC the problem is not so much waste due to bureacracies as it is the present administration who has made it a habit to re-direct public money to private/corporate friends who are hired to "manage" the public resource. This is why toll-roads, school vouchers and charter-schools, Flight Service, military mess and vehicle service etc are all being "privatized." All privatization does IMHO is take available resources (which are supported by taxes and claimed to be inadequate already) and allow a corporation to "skim" some of it off for profit, (as if that didn't further reduce what was already inadequate.) I am not a fan of privitazation. User fees are just another step in that direction because they re-direct public money. Notice the proposals Boeing, etc. are making to take over ATC services.

Aw heck, don't worry about it. Nancy Pelosi will handle this for us, she's big in aviation (or at least she likes BIG airplanes).

Its worse than you think. If user fees come about, you wont be able to avoid them. The FAA will bill you merely for owning the plane AND for the services you use.

Hineywheel Bill wrote:Aw heck, don't worry about it. Nancy Pelosi will handle this for us, she's big in aviation (or at least she likes BIG airplanes).

The news reported the White House is behind that and the White House confirmed it and has made that the official stance based upon her being No. 3 in succession. She expressed a preference to ride the airlines.

George I'm sure you'll be able to supply a transcript as thorough as you are with these things, but I believe she offered to ride the airlines, not that she preferred the airlines.

Actually I think all politicians should be regulated to nothing bigger than a Cherokee Six. They'd be spending more time meeting and learning about their constituents and GA and less time in capital hill screwing around with stupid ideas as this.

No transcript. Just overheard on that publicly-funded radio station I sometimes listen to just to irritate my friends.

gahorn wrote:

Hineywheel Bill wrote:Aw heck, don't worry about it. Nancy Pelosi will handle this for us, she's big in aviation (or at least she likes BIG airplanes).

The news reported the White House is behind that and the White House confirmed it and has made that the official stance based upon her being No. 3 in succession. She expressed a preference to ride the airlines.

This wouldn't be the first wrong position taken by the administration based on wrong or incomplete intelligence. Let her (and the Secret Service) ride JetBlue, or better yet, Greyhound.

Back to issue at hand, i.e. user fees. If anyone thinks that Uncle Sugar will only take just a little bit and won't come back for what's left of the Sunday dinner chicken on the second helping, then you probably don't have enough judgement to be flying an airplane in the first place. If they get their foot in your front door on Monday, by Tuesday night they'll be sleeping in your bed and you'll be on the couch, if you still have a couch. If it's government, be it Republican or Demeocrat, be afraid, be VERY afraid! Bill N76447